10 March,2024 07:45 AM IST | Eksal, Shahapur | Gautam S Mengle
Vishakha Nipurte, Kavita Patil and Sadhana Chaudhari
If you want to get to Eksal, you must cross a vast expanse of forest reserves in Maharashtra's Shahapur taluka. The narrow road is lined with endless, uneven rows of trees, till you see the specks of homes, a sign that the villages are not too far away. We pass a saw dust mill and brick kiln. A brick structure with no paint is the local Chinese food joint, Yogesh Chinese Center. It is also Eksal's primary chicken retail center. Half a kilometer away sits a vermicomposting unit that's operated entirely by women.
When we enter, there is pandemonium. Three women are scurrying about in the cramped space packed with four pits, each two-and-a-half feet high. Ten kilo sacks are lined up in one corner. "We have a rat!" one of them declares.
It is impossible to guess, at first glance, that this tiny rectangular space in the middle of a nondescript village is the seat of an annual turnover of Rs 3 lakh. Earlier in the day, at his office, Fazal Pathan told us how the fate of 50 villages in Shahapur, including Eksal, was inextricably linked to his own. He is Deputy Director of the vermicompost programme by Population First (PF), a Mumbai based non-profit that focuses on women's empowerment, gender equality and community mobilisation to meet social and demographic goals.
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Although a growing industrial area, Shahapur's villages are still rooted in agrarian culture. According to PF's data, 65 per cent of its residents are involved in agriculture and of these, 45 per cent own small farm holdings.
Although barely over two hours away from megalopolis Mumbai, Shahapur, the PF team realised, lacked quality healthcare, education and sanitation facilities. The other hole: the absence of community involvement.
"I arrived in Shahapur in 2007 for a training programme. I was working with UNICEF at the time and Population First was offering a two-week training module. We visited a tribal village at the far end of the district, Valmik Nagar. Life was still primitive there. I saw a woman carrying a malnourished child suffering from a bout of measles; he was running high fever. I asked her if she had consulted a doctor. She was on her way to show him to a local tantrik," Pathan, a Parbhani native recalls.
Pathan never left. He says he found it difficult to "turn his back" on a population stricken by poverty, illiteracy and embroiled in superstition. He moved to Shahapur and joined PF.
"We started the vermicompost project in just 10 villages in 2011," he says. It was under PF's flagship programme AMCHI (Action for Mobilization of Community Health Initiatives) that vermicomposting, a rural development intervention, was adopted as a means to tackle gender inequities. The idea was to allow the women to manufacture organic manure for use in their own fields, and hawk surplus for additional income.
"The first reaction of the villages was to laugh at us. And if convincing the men to let the women work was hard, convincing the women to come out was harder. They had resigned to subservience and unpaid labour, both in the family farm and at home."
Despite being equal participants in agricultural labour, the women had no financial agency. Making their own money would mean that they could take independent decisions for themselves, their families and the community.
It was through relentless training programmes and awareness camps that PF began to change their mindset. The team shared their plan: The women would make vermicompost, odourless, natural manure produced by earthworms when they digest and break down organic waste material and wet garbage. They would also manufacture vermiwash, an organic tonic for crops or a variety of odourless liquid bio-fertilizer which is acquired after water is passed through compost made by earthworms.
The thought of having their own money to spend slowly got them to warm up, Pathan says.
The rat that the three women were hunting for was a real one, not a traitor in their midst. They call rodents their worse enemies. Snakes come second. Imagine this: A happy customer cuts open a vermicompost pouch and out pops a rat. It's bad for business.
Soon, the nuisance will be addressed and the women will be back to work. Savita Nipurte, the chirpiest of the trio, tells us that the pits are filled with cow dung before earthworms - "only Eisinia Fetida earthworms" - are released into the pit.
It's jarring to hear her rattle off the species Latin biological name which, as Google later tells us, is commonly known as the manure worm. It's best adapted to decaying organic material. But Nipurte isn't done dazzling us yet.
"Next comes cow dung slurry. Then, we let the worms do their job. As the worms work their way downwards, the castings they leave behind turn into manure. It's pure and organic, and heaven for crops. We use it in our own crops too, and the produce has been bulkier, tastier and superior in quality." A trained professor of biology couldn't have explained it better.
Once PF had managed to get enough women on board, they chalked out 10 plots of land, one in each designated village, based on the quality of the soil. Ten women from each village made up a team, and were in charge of a unit.
Cow dung was collected from across homes and cowsheds of the villages. Pits were created by hand by local masons. The first set of earthworms was bought by PF.
Within 15 days, the first batch of manure was ready. Simultaneously, farmers and farmhouses were approached. Free samples were handed out to potential customers.
Then came the waiting.
"For the first six months, the word âbusinesswoman' was thrown around as a joke in our villages. Everyone laughed at the women and at us. Besides, we were competing with big chemical manure brands that had an established presence," Pathan says.
When the farmers and farmhouse owners returned, asking for more and were willing to pay this time, Pathan and team knew they had a winner on hand. "Organic manure is high in nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium; 2.5 per cent more than chemical manure. And it has 120 per cent more black carbon, which keeps the soil becomes fertile; it is black gold."
In the sixth month, the units made their first sales, at R500 per quintal. The first unit to make a sale earned Rs 3,500 with the first order, and more by the end of the year. Every woman's share came to R700 after deducting expenses. Many of them cried out of joy that day.
The products are now are sold at exhibitions and fairs. The money the women make is set aside for personal and household expenses, medical bills and school fees. It also means that the team gets a lesson in self-confidence; running a business compels them to communicate and negotiate with a variety of people.
"It is not just about the money, although the money is great!" laughs Nipurte's second in charge, Sadhana Chaudhari. "It is also the independence that comes with it. We have our own money. We can choose how to spend it. We are no longer at the mercy of our men. And after a lifetime of living that way, this change is priceless."
Chaudhari agrees that she has stronger self-worth thanks to the project. The women say they are confident to ask questions, raise a concern before the gram panchayat and approach the sarpanch if laxity threatens to disrupt the operations of their unit.
Production peaks from January to March during the Rabi crop season, and dips during the summers. The lull allows the women to execute repairs of the pits and sheds if needed. When the rains arrive, once again favourable moist and cool conditions are created for vermicompost production.
It is now a sisterhood of 500 women across 50 villages. Contacts are shared, surplus manure is provided to units that are facing an unusually high number of orders, the women take turns visiting the units to make sure the worms are doing well.
"I remember that none of us were willing to touch the worms once," Chaudhari smiles. "Now, they are like our babies. We can spot their spec-like eggs amidst heaps of manure," she adds, picking up a coriander seed-sized egg from the black mass to show us. "We have become attached to this work," adds unit worker Dakshata Patil. "There is joy in it. I'd love to stay and talk more but it's green chilli season and I have to pick my produce."
Pathan explains that the vermicompost intervention was one part of the project. It has subsidiary benefits, like literacy. "These women had never signed their names or owned a bank account. They hadn't discussed terms and conditions with transporters or negotiated deals. We were doing everything from scratch."
The women were living their dream until the COVID 19 pandemic hit. The year 2020 was a double blow for them. The lockdown had robbed the men of their employment and vermicompost sales had stopped. And then, cyclone Nisarg struck, leaving widespread devastation, destroying the vermicompost units. PF intervened and helped crowdfund monies to save 15 units. The money was used to rebuild the sheds with cost-effective but durable steel poles, bamboo sticks and green net. Village masons help rebuild the pits. Women used their own savings to buy fresh earthworms.
Day by painstaking day, every challenge was surmounted. The women learned to sign their names with the help of the better-educated villagers around. They got pamphlets printed and distributed them across the district, inviting potential clients to come see their operations.
When 10 units multiplied to 20, and 20 to 30, word of mouth took care of the rest. Not just clients, but government officials, too, made a stop to see the change that was brewing in Shahapur. The women were wise, and fiercely protective of what they had built.
"Just before the pandemic, a team from the Thane Zilla Parishad came to see the operations, because the government was starting similar schemes all over the state. The women drove the officials away, said you need to pay a fee of R500 and then let them back in," Pathan chuckles. "They don't let any visitors even take pictures without my okay."
Around two years after the units were set up, PF divested itself completely, letting the women take over.
As we ready to walk out of the Eksal unit, Pathan stops us and points to Nipurte.
"This woman, at one point, was bogged down. Her husband and his parents are alcoholics; and no one from her family drinks. It was a shock when she realised that she had married into this family; she was slipping into depression. Today, she leads this unit and is a poster girl for the project."
7-10
No. of women who run one vermicompost unit, which includes 5 pits covered by the shed
To support the women entrepreneurs and buy AMCHI organic compost, get in touch: Fazal Pathan 9011973498, Vishakha Nipurte 7447369283
